We Were Never Here (23 page)

In the end, I stuck with the sick children idea. I wanted to be able to sit down and have Mabel sit next to me, and I wanted to hold some bald little boy's teeny hand and say,
No matter what, it's going to be all right.
It would be a lie and it would not be a lie.

And so I did. Just before the holidays, I went back there. With Mabel.

“While I can't say I'm enjoying reliving pulling up to this place for the thirty thousandth time, I am enjoying that you are going in there as a healthy person and coming out in an hour,” my dad said when he dropped us off.

Full circle, as they say.

“Me too,” is what I said out loud, and I think my voice wobbled a bit.

“I'll be around the corner. In the café that is
not
the hospital cafeteria,” he said. “That coffee was so shitty.”

“Yeah, well, the morphine was pretty subpar as well.”

“Touché,” he said as I went into the back and clicked on Mabel's leash.

“Ready?” I asked her. “See you soon, Dad.”

“Yes.” He looked down at his hands or at the keys in his hands. “Soon.”

Mabel jumped out and then we were in the lobby, where I showed our documents, and then we were on the elevator headed up to the twelfth floor.

The elevator dinged and Mabel and I stepped out. Those same orange chairs where Connor had told me about the girl he'd watched be killed. Back when that story was the story of someone else.

I looked out the window. The scaffolding from the construction was down, and the piles of dirt were just little anthills now. How long before you can actually tell what a building will be? Because I still had no idea what was being built here.

I walked to the nurses' station, strung with paper candy canes and Santa's hats, and blinking red and green lights. Everything was both cheerful and dark, the way Christmastime always seems to me. Mabel's nails clicked along the hallway. It reminded me a little of going back to camp as a counselor. Like I could see everything I used to do and love: the gum tree, the archery targets fastened to bales of hay, the plaques in the auditorium with all our names. I was there to tell the campers what those things were and how to see them and use them now.

Really, all those things were far behind me and so were these bright fluorescent lights, the old people slumped in wheelchairs, the empty gurneys, the doors slightly ajar, where I could see people crying and holding hands.

Click click
went Mabel's nails. It was hard not to remember
Verlaine's footsteps, headed toward my room.

“Look at you!” It was Alexis, who had been there when they'd put in my central line. “Lizzie!”

My hand fluttered up to my chest. It happened practically automatically. I thought I was just another patient to her. One of so many. But maybe she remembered everyone. Maybe they all did. We were their campers.

“And who's this?”

“This is Mabel,” I said. I was being talked to as if I were twelve. Ah, well, I suppose I would always be sick to these nurses. I couldn't really blame them.

“Hello, Mabel!” She came out from the nurses' station and bent down. She held out her hand for her paw, and Mabel gave it to her.

“She just got her certificate!”

“How great,” Alexis said.

“We're just here to say hi. My job—our job—is at the children's hospital.”

By now some of the nurses had gathered around, some I recognized, some I didn't.

“That's really great!”

“Doesn't start for a few weeks, though,” I said. “After the holidays.”

“Hi, Lizzie.” Collette. She was shuffling around the counters and emptied a few cups filled with paper clips and pens and other office stuff.

Collette.

“You look great. How are you feeling?” She came out from
behind the nurses' station and squatted. But more to talk to me.

She held out her hand. On her palm was a plastic barrette. It was purple. It was shaped as a butterfly.

“I found this in your room when you were gone. I don't know why, but I saved it. It was so sweet and it reminded me of you. And it made me think of you flying away from here. Maybe I just knew you'd be back. Or that Connor would be.”

Just the name made everyone freeze a moment, but I didn't say anything.

I shook my head. “That's not mine.”

“No?” she said.

I shook my head. I remembered those barrettes. Red and yellow and purple, all over that little girl's head. “That's Thelma's daughter's,” I said.

She nodded, looking down. “Well, I guess I saved it for you for some reason. Would you like it?”

“Yes,” I said. I remembered her peering around the curtain. Thelma's daughter who was now only her father's daughter.

Collette pressed the barrette into my palm, and we both stood up.

There was an old lady struggling to walk along the hallway. She waved slowly at us as she passed.

I put it in my pocket.

The butterfly.

“Thank you!” I told the nurses as I waved good-bye and heading back to the elevators with Mabel. I couldn't breathe. I had thought I would visit with everyone and bring Mabel to see some of the patients, but I couldn't stay another moment. And as I
headed down from twelve, dinging past each floor, I fingered the barrette in my pocket. I'll keep it for you, Thelma, I thought. It was a dumb thought, but it was the one I was having. Then there was a slight jolt in the elevator, as if Thelma was answering me. Or, I thought more realistically, it was some random malfunction that was going to trap me there in that hospital forever, but then—open sesame—we were in the lobby and then we were out the door fast, I don't remember my feet even touching ground, and then we were around the corner at the café with the decent coffee. There was my father hunched over the newspaper, eating a scone, crumbs on his cable-knit sweater. He looked up at me and I felt in my pocket for the hard plastic and the raised little bumps along the bow-like wings. I have it, Thelma, I thought as I waved to my dad that we were done and ready to go home.

I think, when I look back, this is a story about two people who never thought they could be loved back. And this is the story of those two people loving each other back and back and back.

It's a miracle, actually, that Connor showed up in the hospital just when I happened to be there, needing him. I can't speak for Connor anymore. I think I know what he'd say about all this, but you just never know what's going on with people, even the ones close up next to you. This is my superpower. That I understand all that now. Able to leap tall buildings with all my . . . empathy.

The butterfly stayed in my pocket, everywhere. It was there when I went grocery shopping with my mother and when I went to school and when I was alone in my room doing homework on that dumb study buddy. I could feel it always and it was there too when Michael L and his new girlfriend
Genevieve
(eye roll: of course she's French) and I went for flowers to take to Dee-Dee on her opening night, just before school ended for the holidays. I felt for it in my pocket and through the whole show. And can I just say? Dee-Dee was amazing. Over-the-top fantastic. Who cares she spent four months in character? Pretending. Who doesn't? Really. Tell me someone who doesn't pretend.

I hugged her crazily backstage.
Deedeedeedeeee.
I said.
Dee.
I was so proud to be her friend. She'd been busy and I'd been sick and maybe we'd meet back at the beginning again. Or maybe it would just be this. I'm still not sure. But Michael L and Gene-vieve and Lydia and I leaned against the bike racks anyway, lingering until Dee and Kenickie came out the side entrance like movie stars after the show. Her parents were there waiting, but we just wanted to wave to them and blow them kisses. Dee-Dee had her arms full of roses. Who knew which ones were even ours?

Stella B got in early to Princeton.
Princeton.
I couldn't imagine her going away. I bought her tiger ears and a tiger tail and also, I made her a CD.

My music. Sad and pretty.

I lay on my bed and watched Frog and listened. I drew a crescent moon. I pasted on two magazine hands.
People help the people
, I wrote. I cut out and then pasted on the teeniest yellow bird.

My people. Angus and Julia Stone: “Good-bye to my Santa Monica dream . . . You will tell me stories of the sea, and the ones you left behind.” Birdy: “People help the people, and if you're homesick, give me your hand and I'll hold it.” The Beatles: “There are places I remember . . .”

All these words saying, softly, everything I want to say. To Stella, to Connor, wherever he was out there, whatever he was doing. To the world. To Dee and Lydia, to Zoe. Tim. “And you laugh like you've never been lonely.” That's what Ben Howard sings. “'Cause it's just the bones you're made of.”

All the music. To anyone in the world who has ever held my hand.

Stella was wearing her tiger tail and ears when we went hiking together at Great Falls with the dogs. It was one of those freakishly beautiful and mild January days, the kind you only get one or two of but you can rely on arriving every year. My butterfly was in my pocket then, too. Butterfly in pocket and Stella in front, her little tail twitching as she climbed, sun shining down in those crazy rays of light.

And that's when Connor finally called.

“Oh my God,” I said to Stella. “It's Connor.” I sort of lamely held out my hand with the ringing phone.

“Did you think he'd disappear forever? Are you going to answer?”

“Hi.” I said, answering.

I barely had service and I stopped along the rocks, looking out onto the crashing water. Someone was actually kayaking in there. In a wet suit, with a helmet, navigating the insane waves all alone.

“Can we meet?” Connor said.

We hadn't spoken for what?
Two months.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Who's this?” Below the crash and spray of the water. The man—I think it was a man—with his double paddle held high. Connor couldn't be serious. Not even a
hello
. Not even an
I'm sorry
. Nothing.

“Seriously.”

“I'm not home now.” I was angry now and I watched Stella
stop and turn, her black fleece covered in gray hair. (The fleece was Stella's only concession to hiking; her Docs were her only hiking boots.) Her stupid ears that pressed down her spiky hair made her smudged eyes look sort of perfect silhouetted against the extra-sharp winter sun.

“Can we meet at Fletcher's?”

“No! You can't just call out of the blue, Connor. I was so worried!”

“Why not? Why can't I? I haven't exactly been on spring break here, Liz.”

“Not even a letter! I've been so worried. And so sad.” I paused. “And so pissed! We had this amazing night and then you totally ditched.”

“I'm sorry.”

I was silent.

“It wasn't like that at all. I didn't ditch. I didn't.”

“Anyway, I'm with Stella, like, on this mountain right now.”

“This is not a mountain!” screamed Stella.

“Okay, on some cliff. Anyway, I'm not home!” Inside? I wanted to meet him. I wanted to do whatever he said. But that was no way to be. I couldn't keep . . . unlocking my turtle shell. One day it just wouldn't fasten on again, and I'd be stuck full-on without my . . .
exoskeleton
.

“Where are you guys?”

“Great Falls,” I said. It was actually not at all far from Fletcher's Cove, but I didn't say this.

“Lizzie,” he said. It was only my name, but in it was all these different emotions at once. A prism in a word.

“I'll try,” I said. “I'm trying. Give me an hour.”

“I'll be there in less than twenty minutes, waiting,” he told me, and then he clicked off.

And then he was gone again. I looked out at the crashing water, but I didn't move to leave. I wanted to see him and I wanted to never see him again. What would happen if I just didn't go? How long would he actually wait for me?

“Well?” Stella said.

“B,” I said, as if this was a name I had always called her. “I'm so sorry. But I think we have one more stop.”

Stella, hands in her pocket, turned around in the sun
. Twitch twitch
went the tiger tail. “It's okay,” she said. “I can do one more. I've got one more in me.”

“I want to be there for you too,” I said. I meant it.

“I know that,” she said. “But you are the one in it right now. So where to?” she asked as we followed the dogs back to the parking lot.

“I guess I'll wait here with the dogs,” Stella said as we pulled into the lot. Hula, hula went the girl. Bob, bob went the dog. “And then I guess you owe me a million dollars.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said.

“I'll just listen to your supersweet, super-girly music and mellow out. I look at it as my contribution to finding a cure for ulcerative colitis.” She crossed her arms and leaned back, shut her eyes.

“Ha. I'm sorry. But I can't drive on my own yet! I mean, I still only have my learner's.” Getting my license hadn't been first and foremost on my mind.

“I realize,” she said. “It's no big deal.”

“I guess,” I said. “Thank you, Stella. Really.” I turned toward the boathouse.

The last time I was here I could barely walk. I was skinny and breakable, and I had leaned on Connor the whole way down. Now, he was separate from me. I saw him from where I stood, alone, far away. His feet dangled over the rickety peer and Verlaine sat next to him, tail wagging along the splintery wood.

Oh my God, it was like some crazy ad for perfect boy clothes or something. Tousled Connor, green down vest, old sneaks, sad eyes, golden retriever. When would my heart stop skipping, just at the sight of him?

Question: Who do you go to first? The boy you love or the boy you love's dog?

“Verlaine!” I said, running toward them.

Verlaine is so elegant and . . . trained. He wagged his tail some more and sat and smiled at me. When I patted my chest, he brought his front paws up and dog-hugged me.

“Hi,” I said through his scruff. And then: “Hi.” I looked through the scruff to Connor.

He stood up and we hugged. This is what it was like: like all the parts of me that had been exposed, all my nerves and cells and synapses, were finally again connected.
Click.
Connor.

I could feel him crying. Or maybe that was me.

The last time we were here, we'd gone out in that little boat and he'd had to carry me out of it. I had thought I might die then. Of illness, of shame, of sadness. But I lived and I'm not that sick person anymore.

I wondered if he could even lift me now.

“What brings
you
here?” I asked him, weaving my fingers through his. It was amazing to touch him again. I had thought maybe I would never touch him again.

He looked down. He squeezed my hand, hard. “I have to leave,” he said.

“Why are you even telling me this? I haven't seen you anyway. I mean, what's the difference?”

“Well, there's a difference to me. My parents have been trying to get me into this place in California, and they finally made space for me.”

“California!”

“Yes! That's what I'm saying. Even if I haven't seen you, I know you've been near.”

I nodded, swallowing.

“After I got kicked out of Stone Mountain, this was where they wanted me to go.”

“Got the Stone Mountain memos. I feel bad about that.”

He nodded. “It was my fault.”

To that, I said nothing.

“It wasn't unpleasant. Precisely the opposite. It was so worth it.”

“But you lied! Again! And you've been here, just a town away from me.” Just to say it enraged me. I was angry that we had lost all that time and I was mad that Connor had lost it for us. “Again!”

“So I could see you,” he said. “Greater good.”

I was silent.

“How are you, by the way?”

“By the way? I'm fine. I'm going in for surgery next month. All fine!” I said, falsely bright.

“I want to be there for that. When you wake up.” Connor gripped my hand harder. I felt his bones.

“I don't see how that will happen, do you? I'm a long way from California.” I imagined waking up from the anesthesia and seeing Connor's freckled, sunny face. “But I want you to be there too.”

“I've got to go really soon. My dad is waiting at the restaurant down the road. I'm just going to text him when we're done here.”

“Done?”

“Just with this particular good-bye.”

I looked at him. “Okay. Slow down. Give me a minute. I'm always trying to catch up with you.”

“This place has, like, four kids to a classroom. Everyone gets their own horse to take care of. That's what my parents were so into. They want to help me. You don't see me. When I'm alone. I have to say I fell back on some bad habits.”

My mind went there. Right there. The girl. The one who he never spoke to again. And how many others? “What kind of habits?” I asked him. I was shaking.

“Nothing that involved me leaving the house. Or being with another person. Nothing like that.”

I breathed out.

“It's not like that. It can just get really bleak where I live.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “I wish you could have told me. That you could tell me.”

“I know. I know.”

“You could have.”

“Anyway, so the horses. You get to take care of something that needs you so much. But also gives a lot back,” Connor said.

“Yes. I get that. That's what you do.” I shivered.

“DC. My parents think it's a shitty place for me. All the people I smoked with. The scene of the accident. They're not totally wrong. I want to be better.”

“And me.”

“No,” Connor said. “Not you. Never you.”

I smiled. Just a little smile.

Suddenly, Connor snapped Verlaine's red leash on his collar. “Can you take him?” he asked, holding the leash out to me.

“Sure,” I said, taking the leash. “Hello, Verlaine! Want to go for a spin?”

“No.” Connor looked at me so seriously. “
Take
him take him.”

I didn't stun easily by then—what could be more shocking than what had already happened?—but here I was, stunned.

“Connor.”

“Please, Lizzie. He loves you. He's always alone at my house. He's already changed,” Connor said. “He chews things up. He barks a lot. He's used to companionship.”

I knew he was also talking about himself. My new superpower told me so. I wonder what it was like for Connor, when he was invisible in his room.

“If I'm all the way in California and know he's all alone, I won't be able to . . . concentrate on getting better.”

I imagined my parents. Voilà, I'd say. Please give a warm welcome to Dog Number Three!

“Okay.” What else could I say?

“And that you two will be together makes me so happy.” He seemed suddenly lighter. The old Connor, as bright as if he'd borrowed the sun. “And Frog. I bet she's huge now.”

No kidding. Frog was growing bigger by the second, already the size of my palm. Zoe said we should have a ceremony and let her go in the backyard, but that isn't true about turtles, that they
want to be let go. They can die that way, trolling the suburbs, looking for home. “Okay,” I said again, resolved, and trying to quiet the noise of dealing with my parents in my head.

“I want to be there when you go in for the surgery. But it will be hard to maneuver.”

“Don't,” I said. “That's how you got into this mess, remember? At least part of the mess anyway.”

“I'll be back for summer, though,” he said. “For sure.”

There were a few boats out on the water, some rowers, and a father and son in a canoe farther out. The sun was so bright on all of them.

Connor hugged me, tightly. So, so tightly. “I won't check out again. I won't,” he said. “I promise.”

I hugged him back with everything I had. All my strength and love and openness. There was no shell to me anymore at all.

I felt the hard plastic when I placed my hand in my pocket. “I went back,” I said. “With Mabel. To the hospital. And Collette gave me this.” I brought it out and opened my palm. “It was Thelma's daughter's,” I said. “This butterfly.” I placed the barrette in his hand, and he curled his fingers around it. “I don't know, I know we didn't know Thelma or anything, or really talk to her that much, but I just feel like it's some kind of talisman, I think. From the past to the future.” Had the God's eye brought me luck? I think that it had.

Connor's phone buzzed. “I know that's my dad,” he said. “We have to go. All my stuff's in the car. Catching a plane in a few hours.”

I swallowed.

“Well, bye then,” I said. “Again.”

“Bye.”

But we didn't move. We just looked at each other.

Abruptly Connor squatted down and hugged Verlaine. I couldn't watch. It was too awful.

He stood up and faced me. “I love you,” he said.

“Me too,” I said. “Love.” Would I ever hear the word from Connor and not feel fluttery and light?

He kissed my nose. Then my lips. Just lightly. So lightly and sweetly. “I'll be back,” he said.

“I know you will. I have your dog.”

“No, but
I'll
be back. I just know it.”

I nodded. Good-bye again.

And then I turned to leave with Verlaine, who kept looking back to see if his person was coming too.

But his person wasn't coming, not then anyway.

I turned around and waved to Connor, my Connor. The golden boy.

I watched him put this butterfly in his pocket. Proof that we had all been there.

Why would I put Frog in the backyard like that? I thought as I headed back to Stella and the dogs I knew were waiting with the heat and the music on. It was a random thought, but that was what I was thinking then. I couldn't look back at Connor. I thought how I would just get a bigger tank. And then a bigger one and then a bigger one.

I looked down at Verlaine, who was walking with me tentatively. Stella's car was just around a patch of trees. I will hold on
to Frog forever, I thought. We will grow up together. Together, we will grow strong.

I startled Stella, who was zoning out to Angus and Julia Stone. “I don't know how you stay awake listening to this shit,” she said, sitting up. “It is peaceful, though.”

I held out Verlaine's leash. “Parting gift,” I said. I opened the door for Verlaine and he hopped in. I climbed in the back with him.

“A real beauty,” she said as she looked in the rearview.

I nodded. “I know.” I hugged Verlaine. “He's a keeper,” I said.

When I went away to camp six months ago, I left behind one dog and a life of regularness. And then I was counting losses. I lost so much about my life, I'd thought. But when I walked back toward my house that day Connor and I said good-bye again, I had: everything. Three dogs, a turtle, a true friend, a new job, someone I loved so much it hurt my heart to think of it. What was missing? Nothing was missing anymore.

Almost everyone was here.

After Stella dropped us off, I struggled up the front steps, stumbling over the three dogs I held by their collars. She honked her horn and sped off. Her horn? It played “Johnny B. Goode.” I heard it all the way down my street.

They pulled every which way, straining against my grip. I looked up at my house. That white front door. My mother's newspaper. My father's garden. My sister's textbooks. I leaned down. For a brief moment, the dogs were still. And then, I let go.